


eight to the second power

by jonphaedrus



Series: 8^ [2]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Family Bonding, Gen, Jewish Holidays, Jewish Identity, Purim, Transliterated Hebrew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22957177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: At breakfast that morning, wired on more coffee than he should have been drinking, Hal flatted down a printed out flyer for a synagogue party two days later in Detroit, where they were landing to refuel. “Purim!” He proclaimed proudly.
Relationships: Otacon & Solid Snake
Series: 8^ [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645687
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	eight to the second power

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArtemisTheHuntress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisTheHuntress/gifts).



> i was going to come up with a great explanation for why the title to this fic was eight to the second power but there's no really good connection between holiday and numeral, so this is just to match the rest of the series.
> 
> i'd like to thank my gentile husband for having been so baffled by his first experience with purim that i could steal his unprepared but sort of delighted yet overwhelmed reaction for my fanfic

It started because Hal had said wistfully, “We missed having Halloween with Sunny this year,” and Snake had replied “We live on an airplane, Otacon. We can’t celebrate Halloween.”

Much to Hal’s chagrin, Snake had a point. So he needed to find some kind of alternative—he _firmly_ believed that all children should get at least one fun random holiday where you put on costumes, caused problems, and got free food. So he had taken to the internet (in the way of all adults at the ends of their ropes needing to solve a problem) and googled _fun holidays for kids._ In no time at all, he’d come across a half-dozen articles, and then he’d eaten a bag of Cheetos, it was two in the morning, and he’d read fifteen articles. And then it was six in the morning and he’d read four Wikipedia pages and nine more articles and half of the Book of Esther.

At breakfast that morning, wired on more coffee than he should have been drinking, Hal flatted down a printed out flyer for a synagogue party two days later in Detroit, where they were landing to refuel. “Purim!” He proclaimed proudly.

Snake, in the midst of helping Sunny eat a cup of applesauce, gave it a look. It was the kind of cheap flyer made out of clip and word art that any local community center would decide was good enough, probably. Their shitty printer had washed the color out so it was a line of patchy, desaturated pink and orange stripes around a washed-out black carnival mask with what had been meant to be feathers.

“Okay?” Snake replied. “And?”

“It’s all about _reading_ ,” Hal gushed, leaning onto the table. “And there’s _costumes_. And food, and singing, and dancing, and the adults get to drink so it’s fun for them too. It’s perfect!”

Snake’s expression was incredulous. He picked up the flyer and inspected it, turning it back and forth as if it was about to bite him. Finally, he sighed. “I guess. You sure she’ll like it?”

Sunny, just over a year old, replied by yelling “Book!”

Hal Emmerich might not have been able to see 20/20, but his hindsight sure could. He should have realized something was up the moment that they got to the end of the block by the synagogue and he could already hear what sounded like a massive party. Sunny, one hand currently holding onto Snake’s beard and tugging him around by it, tilted her head questioningly toward the noise, her nose wrinkling.

An hour later, they sat across the street at the late night pancake place, Sunny moodily pulling hunks of her pecan pancake off and then crumbling it up into sticky chopped nut mash. Snake took a sip of his malt and raised his eyebrows into his hairline.

“It _was_ a lot of fun,” Hal muttered, stirring his own milkshake with its spoon.

Now Sunny joined Snake mirroring his incredulous, judgmental face with her own tiny toddler eyebrow. How was he teaching her to do that? Toddlers shouldn’t be able to do that.

“Ok.” Hal rubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes, under his glasses. “I’ve never been to synagogue, so I did underestimate how loud it would be. But it _was_ fun.” If it had just been the two of them, they probably would have stayed all night. Even though Hal barely understood enough Hebrew to catch _Haman_ and _Mordecai_ , and then only when he was focusing, there had been a poorly made powerpoint slideshow and a puppet show and it had just been...fun. They’d been greeted by dozens of people, wished _ḥag sameaḥ_ (although Hal had, shamefacedly, stumbled back with just _happy holidays_ ) and the food hadn’t been half bad.

But Sunny, who had prior to now been around a grand total of about ten people at once in her entire life, had been instantly overwhelmed, and her pained, anguished cries, hands clapped over her ears, had propelled them back out just about as fast as they’d come in.

Sunny squished another fistful of pancake.

“What do you think, Sunny?” Hal leaned against the rim of his cup, ignoring the milkshake he was leaving in a sticky half-circle against the stubble on his cheek. “Should we try again next year?”

Sunny sat there and thought about it with the kind of laser-focus only a toddler (or a cat) could manage for prolonged periods of time. Snake ate his french fries. Hal’s chin slowly slid more into his glass until he had to move his head lest he wind up in melting milkshake up to his nose.

“Purim at home,” Sunny finally settled on, and Hal found himself smiling. “Read together,” she added, with the finality of a child who desperately wanted to learn anything she could get her hands on.

Hal looked up, caught Snake’s eyes, and found Dave grinning back at him. Snake bounced Sunny on his lap, and she looked up at him, adoring.

“Whenever you are ready, we can try going to synagogue together again,” he told her, and Hal was pretty sure if it was possible to just sort of instantly expire from loving your family too much, he was about to do just that.


End file.
